Title: Trends, Tricks and Threats of Being Social

Title: Trends, Tricks and Threats of Being Social

Abstract: As more and more people turn to social media and networking sites to connect and communicate with others from both their private and professional lives, employers large and small are facing a dilemma over whether to embrace or ban these technologies in the workplace. By all indications, social media and networking are here to stay, and it is up to each organization to decide how to best use these technologies to their advantage. The talk will highlight some trends in the use of social media by the private and public sectors. It will also discuss some risks and benefits associated with the use of social media.

Short Bio

Dr. Anatoliy Gruzd is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Management at the Faculty of Management and the Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University. He is also the Director of the Social Media Lab, a member of the Institute for Big Data Analytics at Dalhousie University and a co-editor of a new, multidisciplinary journal on Big Data and Society published by Sage. Dr. Gruzd’s research initiativesexplorehow the advent of social media and the growing availability of user-generated big data are changing the ways in which people communicate, collaborateand disseminate information and how these changes impact the social, economic and political norms and structures of modern society. His expertise lays in developing and testing newanalytics toolsfor discovering and visualizing social media data and online social networks. The broad aim of Dr. Gruzd’s various research initiatives is to provide decision makers with additional knowledge and insights into the behaviours and relationships of online network members, and to understand how these interpersonal connections influence our personal choices and actions. His research and commentaries have been reported across Canada and internationally in various mass media outlets such as Foreign Affairs, Los Angeles Times, Nature.com, The Atlantic, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, and The Canadian Press.